Special thanks to Jack Murtagh for his exceptional, insightful, and annoying editing. Here’s to you, white man. ;D

Disclaimer for Tolkien nerds: I never read Tolkien, it’s a coincidence.

The last snowflakes had fallen, and the tread of leather boots through snow should have turned the single road running through Jinnsfjur to a muddy slush. It had largely remained its pristine white however, as the inhabitants of the village now only ventured outside when they needed to.

That was, aside from the small prints the children left in their wake. The handful of youngsters had lived through the last few years of raiding that the rest of the village had endured, they had huddled under tables as their homes were ransacked, yet they somehow still managed to enjoy the respite that the snowfall had brought from their torment.

Perhaps they thought the attacks wouldn’t start again, as they had each of the last few seasons. Perhaps they simply didn’t realise that there was a pattern to events which culminated in the marauding band returning at the start of each spring.

Perhaps they were simply the only ones who still had hope that things could change. They would soon know that their hope was in vain.

The wafting aroma of freshly baked bread coming from Milena’s window was her daily attempt to bring some brightness to the lives of her fellow villagers.

She had tried so hard to keep her hopes alive that the situation may improve. It had to, she told herself; for her daughter, that she wouldn’t have to live a life of fear, scrounging for scraps in a world that had forgotten about her.

That had been the whole point, when Milena and the other eleven had first come here and settled Jinnsfjur. The nearby forest provided all the lumber they needed, its animals giving them meat, hides, and furs, the river gave fish and fresh water to irrigate the farmland. Most importantly, it was completely untouched by other settlers. There weren’t any other people living somewhere so remote.

Nor were there any creatures they had to fear; no trolls nor ogres roaming the mountains, not even any wolves in the forest, and even the city of Nirna – the closest point of civilisation – had never suffered a dragon attack.

It seemed an impossible paradise in the harsh world they known so far, and it was ... at first. The town thrived in the first few years. They built their houses, they built two mills – one for flour and one for lumber, the flowing river waters powering both the grindstone and the sawblades.

They soon had enough produce that Pavel began taking a caravan back to Nirna, the city they had all worked so hard to escape once, to trade for the few things they needed which they couldn’t create themselves.

He’d told them all what it was like being back, that first time. Sat around the fire pit in Jinnsfjur’s common house, he related how the memories of begging in the streets had quickly returned, of sleeping under shop awnings to escape the rain, of taking whatever work they could find to earn just enough to scrape by one more day.

The city hadn’t changed, he’d said. Still overcrowded, still reeking of the grime and filth filling the streets. If anything, it had seemed that there were even more homeless filling the alleyways between the cobblestone buildings.

Seeing the desperation in their eyes had been like looking back ten years into a reflection he’d desperately tried to forget.

Seeing the poverty he had managed to escape made the finer clothes he now wore feel like a lie, as though the embroidered tunic and tailored boots were an attempt to trick people into believing he was something he wasn’t.

He struggled between wanting to take them back with him, and wanting to flee as far as he could from the grim reminder of his own past. He wanted to give them what they needed. He didn’t want to lose what he had managed to gain.

He didn’t even want to look at them, begging as they were, reminding him of where he had come from. He didn’t want the reminder of his past, yet he looked. He didn’t ever want to forget how far he and the others had come.

Of course, eventually word got around of the prosperous new settlement to the south, settled at the foot of the mountains rimming the edge the known world. At first it had been a single person coming home with Pavel’s caravan.

Luka had been a soldier in the past and had tired of fighting. He wanted to settle down, farm some land, and live a peaceful life. There was land aplenty to be found, and he seemed a genuine sort of man, so the founders welcomed him.

He looked to be a tall and sturdy man, one who could work a field well and reap a bountiful harvest. His years in the army had made him strong, but unfortunately they had taught him to use a sword much better than a hoe. He lamented that the tool of his new trade brought yet more callouses to hands he had thought would not have to endure any more roughening.

He needed somewhere to stay while his own home was being built. Since she had the most room, Milena eventually, and reluctantly agreed to let him sleep on a makeshift cot in her storefront.

Luka did his best to help Milena as he could, whenever he wasn’t building his soon-to-be home or preparing his land for planting - badly. Milena never failed to complain about anything and everything he did or didn’t do, often ending with what an indignity it was that she was forced to board him at all.

She told him that he was too young for his hair to be greying as it was. He told her that her straw coloured mane was the most lustrous he had seen.

They were married by the time Luka’s house was built. The whole village celebrated, throwing a feast in the house which would after go unused. Luka moved into the house above the bakery, and when they were not working, he and Milena were never seen apart, and always hand in hand. Katia was born the following year.

Brigid remarked she had her mother’s hair and her father’s nose. A shame, Luka said, gesturing to his own nose which had become misshapen after being broken several times. Milena playfully slapped his arm, rolling her eyes at her husband’s jokes.

More people came to settle in the growing hamlet, and the house built for Luka found a new owner. More children entered the lives of the villagers, a community of good and kind people grew, and for years it seemed that their future would bring nothing but joy.

Eventually even a certain stone tower was erected at the forest’s edge. It was inhabited by a mysterious man who had come to them once and found something he had been missing.

The perfectly formed stones offset the wooden appearance of the village beside it, as did its height, rising high above the villager’s homes, almost to the canopy of the trees it stood beside.

A single window at its peak looked out over Jinnsfjur, its people feeling like its owners protective gaze was watching over them, at least until he left on another of his journeys.

Then they came.

Down from the mountains they came on horseback. Clad in thick furs and brandishing chipped swords and rusty battle-axes they came into the heart of Jinnsfjur. They broke down doors and knocked their owners to the ground. They stole tanned hides and cured meats from racks as though they were theirs. They stole anything that took their fancy, valuable or not.

They stole pillaged and hurt without remorse, taking sick pleasure in the terror the wrought.

Then the villagers were brought before their leader, a mountainous man with a face full of ugly scars. He told them that they needn’t ever endure another day like this one; that he and his men could protect their growing community, and that Jinnsfjur could be certain of their safety so long as they kept their protectors fed and clothed.

For what seemed an interminable time no one moved, the villagers shocked at this development in their – up till now – peaceful hamlet. The ugly giant of a man simply stood there wearing his smug grin, the already grotesque scars covering his face pressed into a deathly white.

Finally, it was Luka who stepped forward to meet him, his soldiering instincts returning with force. He told the bandit leader that Jinnsfjur and its people needed no protectors, and that he and his band should return where they came from.

The bandit leader’s smirk didn’t waiver for an instant, he’d been expecting this response. He appeared to concede, saying that he and his men would leave, find another village that was in need of “valiant defenders”.

It was a lie. His attempt to appear affable was transparent to everyone present. Luka knew they would return soon, and it would not be to offer a better agreement. The people of Jinnsfjur would have to prepare.

When the last of the raiders was gone, Luka turned to his fellows, battered and frightened as they were, and told them they would need to fight to defend the village. Brin the woodsman and Olan the blacksmith readily agreed, they were not about to give up everything they had worked for the last ten years.

The next day was a flurry of activity. Luka organised everyone into groups and laid out his plan to repel the bandits. Most of the villager’s had never fought anything more than a hungry rat or a particularly smug chicken, and were understandably afraid for their lives.

Milena’s heart warmed at the ease with which Luka comforted and inspired them.

This village was their home, their legacy, and no one was going to take it from them. For all the gloom of the impending attack, the one bright spot in Milena’s eye was that it revealed her husband’s true path. He was never really meant to be a farmer, he was a leader.

Olan spent every waking moment in his forge, his large muscles bulging and sweat beading down from the top of his bald head all the way down his stocky shoulders. He was hoping to arm his friends and neighbours with proper weapons, yet he managed to forge only a half dozen spearheads over the course of the day.

Passionate as he was to fight for his home, it was a new experience for him too. His years of crafting nails and horseshoes had left him ill-prepared to forge weapons of war. His first attempt to use his normal iron stock left him with a spearhead that shattered as soon as it struck a shield, before he recalled what he had been taught about folding ores for use in weapon smithing.

Brin was there with him, attaching the spearheads to shafts he had whittled, his experience showed as he hastily crafted the weapons with skill born from a life of hunting.

Ill-equipped as they were, the entire village was committed at this point. Two barricades were hastily erected at the town entrance by noon, designed not to stop intruders, but to funnel them into an enclosed area. Luka said this would give them their best chance to prevail as he calmly gave everyone their orders, the old soldier in him emerging once more.

The few with spears among them would meet the invaders head on, and those of the village who hunted in the forest would remain behind the barricade with their bows, they had new prey to hunt. Brin would lead them; experienced as he was in its use, he always took meticulous care of his bow, applying a fresh coat of wax to the strings that morning. It was his most prized possession, the shaft adorned with a single feather, lock of hair, or tuft of fur from every different creature he had hunted with it.

Everyone else scrounged whatever weapons they could from their homes. Shovels, pitchforks, kitchen knives, and other assorted tools were repurposed into instruments of death as dusk began to fall and the rag-tag formation readied themselves.

Marko earned himself a knock across the head before the battle even started, after Freja caught her husband breaking apart her favourite pot to back the simple wooden shield the carpenter had built.

As Luka addressed his newly-formed militia that night, somehow making each and every one of them ready to face death itself, the youngest of the children were huddled in Brigid’s root cellar.

No one had told them exactly what was going to happen, no one had wanted to scare them. Katia, barely five years old, was the youngest. Milena and Luka would do anything to get through this night alive and see her again. Their daughter meant everything to them.

Soon the thunder of hooves reached the peasant army’s ears, and to their credit, not a single person’s courage failed them. They stood ready to meet the invaders, trusting in the leadership of the one who had rallied them to not give in to tyranny, to not accept anything less than what they deserved, to mark their place in history as a people who would make a good life for themselves, despite the depredations of evil men.

The band of marauders was almost upon them, their horses bearing down on the town with no sign of slowing. Clearly, there would be no mercy to be had. Luka’s presence at the very front, and his war cry that bellowed out filled the people of Jinnsfjur’s hearts with resolve. They believed in him and in themselves, they believed they would win.

Milena’s heart soared to see her beloved husband as she never had before; as a warrior, as a leader. She had frequently told him how bad of a farmer he was over the years, in earnest at first, then as their love had grown it had become a cherished joke between them. At this moment however, such jokes were far from her mind, for he had never looked as magnificent to her as he did now.

That, though, proved quite the distraction; as she stood beside him ready to defend their home, she almost had to suppress a snicker as she silently promised herself to never tell him what a truly amazing man he was.

As it happened, she would never get the chance. That was the night Luka died.

He had said the raiders would charge headlong into the village – thirsty for blood and heedless of danger – expecting little to no resistance from simple farmers.

And he was right.

The mountainous leader of the marauding band galloped headlong towards the centre of the barricades. If he was surprised at all by the presence of defences, he didn’t show it. There was nothing but murder in his eyes.

The half dozen spears he rode into did their job, though, bringing his mount to a stop as it struggled with the wounds the villagers inflicted upon it. In its death throes it managed to throw its rider from its back, thankfully giving a reprieve from the wild swings the scarred giant had been making.

It didn’t take him long to recover however, and to make his displeasure known. By now his underlings had caught up to him and a fierce melee ensued. Those who had been on horseback hadn’t fared much better than their leader, a rain of arrows from behind the barricades bringing down one horse after another, and more than a few of the bandits atop them.

Their own archers had made to return the effort, firing from bows and crossbows wildly at the people huddled behind the simple wooden walls. A few of the villagers were struck, but by the time all of the invader’s horses had been felled, the height of the barricade effectively prevented further reprisals.

The melee at the convergence of the two barricades had grown into an all-out battle, villagers and raiders mixed so much that either side firing arrows into it carried the risk of hitting their own people.

On both sides bows were dropped, while the invaders grabbed axes and swords the villagers took pitchforks and shovels to hand, and all rushed into the ensuing frenzy.

At the centre of it all was the bandit leader, the ugly mountain of man’s scarred face twisted in delight as he savagely swung his sword at his next victim. It too was an ugly, jagged thing matching its owner in how oversized it was.

By Luka’s side several of his friends now lay dead, those who had bravely - or perhaps foolishly, attempted to fell the bandit leader themselves. It seemed to him that the man’s appearance belied his martial skill, the many scars criss-crossing his face bearing testament to the many battles he had fought – and lived through.

He had just finished removing his sword from Marko’s belly. The carpenter’s hastily assembled shield had provided him little defence, his best wood and the mangled remains of his wife’s favourite pot now lying shattered by his side.

It was then that Freja, who had always been a meek and almost painfully shy person – except when facing her husband, saw the beastly man cut him down with nothing short of contempt. Kitchen knife in hand, she lunged at him screaming in rage only to be impaled and held aloft on his enormous sword, painting a grisly tableau of the villain’s savagery. As she slid down to the hilt, her weak attempts to stab the villain’s heart were barely strong enough to pierce his skin.

Luka, upon seeing this, quickly dispatched the nameless bastard he was fighting, delivering a swift cut along his throat as he had been taught, and ran to engage the biggest threat to Jinnsfjur’s victory.

The clash of steel rang out all around, blow after blow the two commanders traded steel, their skill and determination matching each other as they moved, viciously attempting everything they could to end the other’s life as the battle raged around them.

Brin proved himself a natural with his dagger, bringing down three of the invaders single-handedly as easily as he would a wounded, thrashing stag.

Even Milena, who recoiled at the idea of killing the occasional rat which infiltrated her bakery, didn’t hesitate to go on after being drenched by a spray of blood coming from a bandit’s throat once she was done burying one of Marko’s awls into it.

Soon enough the marauders realised that their raid wasn’t going as well as expected, and several of those remaining, began to retreat. Two of their number made towards their leader’s side.

By this point both he and Luka were heaving heavy breaths, they had gained and lost ground, inflicted small wounds upon each other, but neither had yet gained a decisive advantage.

The image of Luka standing there, his dented breastplate shining in the torchlight, squared off against the imposing giant in his patchwork furs might’ve made the very essence of a heroic epic.

But this was not a noble tale to be told in taverns and kings’ courts, this was a deadly struggle between people and predators at the edge of the known world, a tale of nameless heroes in a place no one had ever heard of. A tale that would never be told. It was the kind of tale that rarely had a happy ending.

The two remaining members of the raider gang were now struggling to pull their leader back from the fray. Eyes seeing only red and frothing at the mouth, it was clear the brute still felt nothing but rage even as many of his fellows lay dead and dying around him.

What reason he had eventually won out though, as, seeing the mob of angry villagers now beginning to crowd around him, he finally turned and ran, leaving Jinnsfjur – and his conquest – behind.

The people of Jinnsfjur exhaled a heavy breath. The cost had been great, but victory was theirs. Friends and family had fallen, more than any had hoped but fewer than some might have expected. Their preparations and Luka’s leadership had proven fruitful.

A cheer erupted among the survivors as they watched the raiders flee. They had done it. Against all odds, they had prevailed. They had shown the would-be invaders that their people would not be cowed, they would not be made slaves.

Milena’s heart stopped in the next moment. The adrenaline coursing through her veins had let her shrug off the sickening gore, the horrid violence, and the chaos of the battle. It could not, however, stop her from freezing in place when the arrowhead erupted through her husband’s throat.

She was looking into his eyes, joy and disbelief warring within her mind. The smile he gave her bringing tears of relief, when suddenly he gasped, a ghastly rattle coming in place of his voice, and a choke of blood leaving his lips.

Just beyond the town’s barricades, beyond the mess of dead men and horses, the ugly leader of the bandits had apparently determined that their happiness could not go unpunished.

He had stopped to pick up a bow from one of his dead comrades, knocked a single arrow, and took aim. Too caught up in the high of their victory, none of the townspeople had noticed.

But his skills extended beyond just his sword. Those people would know this, he decided. They would soon know the name Cruvik, and know to fear it.

What had been a moment frozen in place erupted with activity. In the seconds it took Luka to drop to his knees, then forward onto the bloodied ground beneath, several of the villagers rushed after the bandit leader, weapons in hand, anger in their eyes. But he was already gone, disappeared into the darkness.

The battle had seemed endless while it was happening. Each second filled with dread and adrenaline for the farmers-turned-soldiers fighting for everything they had.

Now it seemed like it had passed in mere moments, and the rest of the night was dragging into eternity.

The one pristine white of the snowy road was now a splashed all around with a grisly dark red, tainted with death for the first time.

Gathering the bodies of the fallen had been the first priority. Few words were spoken as they moved the dead to the side of Jinnsfjur’s only road, they would have to start digging graves in the morning.

With Luka gone, the others had looked to Milena for leadership, but she was inconsolable. Several minutes had passed before she moved from her spot, eyes still staring at the fallen form of her love.

Eventually, Brigid returned from unlocking her root cellar to let the children out. She removed her fur cloak and wrapped it around Milena’s shoulders, and took her – walking slowly and listlessly – to her house where the children waited with too many questions and too little hope.

Katia immediately ran to her mother’s arms, the few hours away from her had been almost too much to bear. It wasn’t until she asked after her father that the first tear crested Milena’s eyelid.

Katia didn’t know why her mother was crying, but she thought it must be something awful, her mother never cried no matter how bad things got.

She remembered that when her father had broken his leg one summer while foraging in the woods, her mother had only told him to “Walk it off!” Nothing ever scared her.

Whatever it was that could make her mother cry, Katia knew her father would be able to make everything better, like always. She hoped he would be back soon.

The children all slept soon after, they were the only ones; other than Freja, understandable given that she had chosen to fight despite expecting to bring a new child into her home in only a few months. She fought well, all things considered, but the exhaustion had caught up with her.

When she woke the next morning, she wasn’t sure what sight she expected to greet her upon exiting her house. She hoped with all her heart and prayed to any gods who would listen that the last night had been nothing but a terrible dream.

The pit in her stomach knew it wasn’t, vying as it was for size with the child growing inside her, and as she emerged into the village fresh tears sprang forth as she saw the bodies of her friends arranged in a row covered by dirty sheets.

She felt nothing but emptiness as the tears ran down her face. When Pavel and Brin approached her, it sounded like they were speaking from so far away that she could barely make out their words.

The barricades still stood there at the village entrance, and just beyond them the corpses of the dead marauders had been dragged into a pile, a grisly reminder of the horrors of the previous night.

When she came back to herself, she realised they were asking her how she was feeling. She assured them she was okay, that she wanted to help. Pavel suggested she help prepare food for those who would spend the day digging graves.

Brigid agreed, the less she had to see of what was to come this day, the better.

A week went by while everyone tried to return to their normal lives. A pall had hung over the village ever since that fateful night. Milena had tried countless times to tell Katia what had happened to her father, but could never get the words out.

The only hope shining through the gloom was that while the cost of their freedom had been high, they had paid for and won it.

Or so they had thought.

On the eight day after the battle, Cruvik returned to Jinnsfjur. Casually riding into town with twice as many men as he had brought with him that night. Several of the people outside ran, either screaming into their homes or to retrieve the weapons they thought they would never have to use again.

He waited patiently while all the villagers gathered and armed themselves, a smug smile on his scarred face as his horsemen squared off against the rag-tag mob once more.

Milena pushed her way to the front of the crowd, the rage in her eyes was the first feeling she had felt beyond despair in over a week. The calmness in her voice betrayed that fire in her eyes as she asked the bandit leader why he was back.

Cruvik told them of himself and his band, told them that the force he had brought with him before was but a small number of the men he commanded. That he in fact led all the marauding gangs throughout the Mehann Mountains.

He told them, in no uncertain terms, that he would have the tribute he expected and that if they continued to resist him, the “soldier” as he described him, wouldn’t be the last example he made.

His dismissive tone as he spoke of her late husband was the last straw for Milena. She lunged at the giant with her hands outstretched, seeking only to satisfy the burning anger that had been building inside her since she watched this man take what was most important to her.

Olan was quick to hold her back however, and the only response this display elicited from Cruvik was an amused chuckle. He then turned and left with his gang of raiders, promising to return.

And return he did the very next day. Olan tried his best to fill Luka’s shoes by trying to inspire resistance in his fellows, but it was in vain.

The barricades that had been so hastily erected before had already been dismantled and used to build coffins for the fallen. They had no materials from which to build new ones.

When Cruvik and his men returned, the people of Jinnsfjur were woefully underprepared to resist this time. Olan made a brave stand, declaring to the bandit leader’s face that they would not submit. The stocky, muscular blacksmith seemed small next to the giant, and he was cut down within moments of speaking his resistance.

Whatever hope they had left was gone, no one was left who was willing to fight. Jinnsfjur and its people stood silent as the raiders took what they wanted from their homes, fields, and shops.

For the next three years the marauders would return at the start of each spring to announce they were expecting their tribute soon. Wanting to minimise their interaction with their oppressors as much as possible, the villagers always prepared a pallet loaded with food, skins, and anything else they produced.

Each year Milena spent a few hours by the prepared pallet, staring at the food they painstakingly grown and harvested, slowly fingering the bottle in her pocket.

The occupant of the stone tower at the forest’s edge had given it to her before he left. After she had complained of the rats infesting her bakery, he had handed her the small round bottle and told her a single drop on a piece of bread left as bait would kill any pest that ate it.

The first year Pavel came up to her side. “I’ve thought about it too, Milena. Maybe stuffing some of the meat with hemlock. But we don’t know if it would kill him, or any of them for that matter. They would just come back and slaughter us all!”

Milena replied sullenly. “I know, but I still like to think about it.”

She knew she would not risk her daughter’s life on a vain attempt at revenge which may not even work, yet each year she stood there, fantasising about killing the monster which had taken so much from her.

And each time one of their tormentors thanked her for her offerings, each time they took more than they needed, each time one of them threw one of the young girls over his shoulder and took her kicking and screaming into the common house, Milena inched ever closer to throwing caution to the wind.

They continued to provide their tribute, but it was never enough. Each year, the gang rode through the village taking all that they could carry, and the pallet as well. The most valuable thing they stole however, was Jinnsfjur’s hope for the future.

Those three years marked the end of the town’s growth. Some had already packed up and left; Brigid being the first, after her baby had been born. She had resolved that her child would not live under Cruvik’s yoke, even if it meant returning to the crowded slums of the cities.

And as time passed, more agreed with her. Some of them had looked longingly at the empty stone tower at the forest’s edge, but that hope was a distant one at best. He had been gone so long, they didn’t know if he would ever be back.